Hank Ballard

Blake Carrol of Detroit Michigan Writes:

“Dear High Priest of Good Times,
I am a post-apocalyptic revolutionary based out of the area that was once called “Detroit Michigan”. My brothers and sisters and I, hunt, fish, farm, fight & fuck out here on the great urban prairie. Even though the world has ended, we live a relatively happy life amongst its ashes. The only thing we miss is rock and roll music and sometimes coca cola. Is there any way you could help?”

...Well Blake I can’t help you out with the soda but I do happen to have some Pre-apocalyptic music from that once great metropolis known as Detroit. It is a known fact that Hank Ballard & The Midnighters played a hand in Detroit’s down fall.

Hank Ballard was a student of the black arts. In 1950 he founded the First African Church Of Satan on Hastings Street. The Church attracted allot of attention and controversy. The sermons resembled Baptist ceremony, including rousing gospel style tunes replacing any sanctified imagery, with sexually explicate lyrics, meant to conjure up the devil, or “old scratch” as they called him. The parishioners would be worked into frenzy that eyewitnesses said resembled an orgy. The church was only up and running for a year before the locals ran them out and burned the building town. Many Detroit natives believed to even speak of the place brought bad luck.

Hank hung up the collar and decided to try and spread his evil message by reworking his sermons into R&B numbers. He joined forces with The Midnighters and began recording and performing. One such sermon “the Twist” , would later be covered by Chubby Checker and started a seemingly harmless dance craze.

As for the city of Detroit, the damage was done. Hank’s witchy ways had incited the devil or some other angry spirit to take residence in the Motor City. It wasn’t long after the auto plants started closing and the place began to burn. The writing was on the wall when in 1954, “work with me Annie” went to number one on the R&B charts. That summer was Detroit’s hottest in history.

Enjoy Blake. Give My Love to Detroit!

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